Night, Reflection, and Exhausted Possibility
by cassowary
Summary: Hopelessness and desperation is safe. Compassion leads to dangerous lines of thought. Some risks are not worth taking. Sometimes, one must take those risks anyways. If only to be human.


Author's Note: It's been quite a long time since I've posted anything, can't you tell? I think I've gotten out of practice pumping the interwebs full of gloom and doom. So feel free to tell me what you think. Overdramatized? Too angsty? Too funny? Too disjointed? Too forced? Too OOC? I was too unsure of my abilities at the present to continue on with any of my multichapter fics, so I'm just testing the waters again before I take the plunge. Your opinion counts! I would also like to endorse the band "Kosheen." Great stuff. Kind of dark, but totally awesome. Have a great day!

_The night-woman, she…wasn't happy_.

I cannot help but laugh.

_Of course, Thorn…I wouldn't be happy to see us either_.

_But I thought you…_

_That was a different time. You didn't know me back then._

A part of me shudders. A part of me wishes I still lived in a world where I still had a hope of living for myself, for my own dreams and salvation. Thorn keeps me anchored in the real world, where I am only sustained by bonds and webs and dependency. I am kept alive for him, and nothing else, I tell myself.

_She was hurt_, my fearsome partner tells me, and I can feel his great waves of sadness. He is too young for this. I am too old for him. I've been too long for this place, ever since I was born. _She feels like you hurt her. She must feel…like us._

I sigh.

_I did hurt her._

I had never seen anything like her skin before. It was dark, and smooth, and she once stood before me like a goddess. For the shortest time, I slept peacefully in a tiny world where nothing could reach me, nothing but _her_, and I dreamed of her skin under my own pale fingers and lips (like Death taking her, I now realize). I dreamed of her flashing eyes, and her fierce smile; I loved to read with her and argue with her in the (presumed, I had no way of telling) day when I could have just reached out…

_You did not want to hurt her. Maybe she will understand us_.

And then _he _forced me, like _he_ always has. It was not enough that _he_ has taken everything of me, violated and subject to_ his_ will. _He_ means to change us, control us. I burned her skin. I smelled it. I looked into her eyes and saw her helplessness; her anger, her pride. I blocked Thorn out. He has already seen too much. My insides burned, too. I thought that I would protect myself. I thought that by taking away my face from the equation, we would disconnect. She knows me too well for such a flimsy trick. _He_ was victorious, as always.

_It is too late for us, Thorn_, I tell my dragon. He wants to disagree, but he cannot find any reason to do so. He can barely comprehend why things have spiraled out of control so quickly as it is. He does not understand that I cannot protect him as I should. If he did, I do not doubt that he would somehow sever our bond and leave me. In a way, I am thankful for his blind love. In another way, it is a great burden. My thoughts have not been my own since we were connected.

_But not for her._

_Not yet_.

When I open my eyes again, he is blocked out. I know that he does not want to be alone, but he needs rest after his latest injuries. Or so I tell myself.

My father looks back at me. He is not smiling. A shiver runs down my spine, catching on the knotted scar. I have never been able to meet his eyes, but he wears his dark hair long, tied neatly with a red ribbon. He wears an officers' uniform, emblazoned with the Flame of the Empire. Zar'roc is always at his side. This is how he has always been. He has been drinking again. Why is there a bitter taste in my mouth?

There is a ripping pain in my back, and bile in my throat, and the scent of burning black skin in my nose. Everything is torn away, or pushed away, even my own dragon, a bond that should only have ever been sanctified now turned into a choke chain for the two of us. I push Thorn away to protect him from myself. For a second, something breaks.

There is a silvery sound, and my right hand is warm and wet and shredded. Morzan is gone, but jagged shards hang from the broken mirror's frame. Two dark eyes look back at me from the wreckage on the floor. Still, the red uniform jacket is unceremoniously unbuttoned and thrown to the floor, blocking out what little remains of my reflection. Dressed now in the neutral black I wore underneath; disconnected from that innocent voice that keeps me in thrall; bleeding at least a little for my sins and only human and insignificant once again, I stumble from my room and to where she lies like us in a physical likeness.

And still, she bleeds. I do, too. All my words and excuses, the price of her life and pain. She does not understand that we are the same, as she lies in her torn nightgown, burned and destroyed from the outside, at the mercy of a sick world. Not yet. My words cannot stop. I am as naked as her, from the inside. My thoughts are disjointed from alcohol and distraction and distress; my hands twitch over my face.

Her eyes used to be so warm.

All the energy, all of the souls of the departed, all the dragons in the world cannot heal betrayal. Her skin is warm, salty with sweat and dried blood under my clammy hand. Yet again, I cannot shield a heart that has already been damaged like my own. I can feel Thorn trying to get in, but this is something that I cannot ask from him. My eyes and mind are blurred with tears as my old dream begins its own fulfillment in the worst way.

As soon as the spell is over, I remove my hand.

Her eyes were filled with pity and disgust. _You should have died_, they told me, but it is too late for that.

Her words ring in my head.

"_I cannot forgive you…but I understand."_

As I collapse into my ever-empty bed, I let Thorn in again. I have kept him out for too long already. It would be easier if he were angry at me for the way I have treated him, but he is eager for my attention.

That night, we dream together of a woman with a bright smile in a dark face, and a red dragon's scales flashing in the sun high above as he hunts.

I do not doubt that all of us will pay dearly in the morning.


End file.
